CH233 (847), Hopefully They Are Still Around

Lunatone swiftly realized that it was pretty much helpless and once that happened, it cooperated. It shared how as well as where it had gotten the Minior shell splinter, and honestly, the whole thing was rather unexpected. Apparently, Lunatone was from the deeper parts of the Meteor Falls cave system, and it had run over to this place to hide and absorb the splinter just the day before yesterday.

The reason it had come to the outermost part of the Meteor Falls was that it had grabbed a splinter that broke off of a much larger piece during a confrontation between a Solrock and an Aggron. The two fought over the large piece and Lunatone being much weaker than them could only watch them from a distance. When their battle caused a few small pieces of the contended Minior shell to break off, Lunatone risked everything and snatched one of the pieces for itself.

It was not the only one that did so since other Pokemon that had been lurking around, watching the confrontation, also took action to get their hands on the splinters. Lunatone managed to get the splinter I checked, but more than one of its fellow lurkers witnessed it, and there were 3 that were strong enough to try to rob Lunatone. Lunatone shared that it ran/flew away as soon as it snatched the splinter and that it spent hours trying to throw off its 3 followers.

It managed to get rid of 2 of them without a fight, but an Excadrill persisted and eventually managed to catch Lunatone, forcing it to fight. Thankfully it was able to levitate, so Lunatone had a slight advantage even if Excadrill proved to be the slightly stronger fighter. Lunatone explained that it kept fighting for as long as it took to tire Excadrill out enough for it to fall for a Hypnosis.

Lunatone used the temporary reprieve to escape and having already run pretty close to the outer area, Lunatone chose to head for this place since it did not want to risk anyone else coveting its hard-earned splinter. I could feel the mishmash of emotions it felt when it said the last bit, and I told it that I was willing to not claim the splinter, which definitely surprised Lunatone.

It had an "aha" moment when I said that I had a condition for that, but it was eager to find out what I wanted in exchange. My request was pretty simple and stemmed from the fact that Lunatone had admitted to being from the inner/unmapped parts of the Meteor Falls. I wanted Lunatone to act as my guide and bring me around the unmapped area. I could have just caught it before ordering it to do that, and that was admittedly my initial plan as soon as I had the idea, but when I felt its emotion cocktail I changed my mind.

I was pretty sure that Lunatone would do a better/more thorough job if I promised to return the splinter to it, and after I confirmed that I was serious, underlining my truthfulness using my aura, Lunatone agreed to act as my guide for as long as I needed it to. When I mentioned it leading me to the battle site it became rather nervous and told me that that was too dangerous.

I had Mothra/Butterfree flex her power for a moment to remind Lunatone that we were not chopped liver either, but Lunatone still insisted that it was too dangerous because there was more than just one Pokemon as strong as Mothra living in that area, so I had Thor/Raichu and Nyx/Umbreon join in. Just to make a point, I told Lunatone that we still had quite a few more friends who were just as strong, and that finally seemed to convince/calm Lunatone.

Nonetheless, Lunatone still asked why I wanted to see the place where the battle took place. It told me that the winner had most likely already taken the shell away and we would be hard-pressed to find any splinters or useful fragments since the lurkers that stuck around until the end would have grabbed/scavenged anything that could be used. I just told it that I was interested to see if we could find any signs of how that Minior shell appeared there.

When Lunatone followed that up by sharing that shells like that occasionally showed up in different parts of the inner and core area, my mind went into overdrive. The way that Lunatone said that made it sound like a periodic event, and that would be impossible if it was just shells of past Minior resurfacing. An occasional but expected event hinted at the possibility of a live Minior or a group of live Minior's occasional shedding being the source of those shell appearances.

The idea was enough to excite something fierce, and I really hoped that if I truly managed to find some Minior, it would be a group of them since I was pretty sure that I could not resist catching at least one if not more regardless of their talent simply due to their relative rarity, popularity, and appeal. I did not forget the story about the ProgeniMinior that Dusknoir told me after all. A chance to add a species to Utopia that had a confirmed member who managed to elevate its stage to that of a deity was extraordinarily tempting.

Just considering the prospect that Utopia could possibly loosen or even entirely get rid of the seal Palkia put on the species due to the potential danger their ascension could cause made the idea of adding Minior to Utopia very compelling. Even if it did not work out, the species was still interesting enough for me to keep them around to study them to see if we could push them further as a species despite the seal since I was pretty sure that the ProgeniMinior had to be superior racial value-wise compared to the "modern" Minior.

Anyway, I definitely had my reasons to check the place out, and I was now even more interested in exploring the unmapped areas of the Meteor Falls than before, though that did not mean that I would rush straight there. We still had to finish checking out the mapped areas first. It turned out that Lunatone was a newbie to the outermost area as well, which made it pretty useless for now, so I chose to capture it to avoid any mishaps.

It looked like Lunatone wanted to complain, but it ended up keeping its tongue, figuratively speaking, so I caught it using a regular PokeBall before switching it to stasis mode. Honestly, I was not planning to keep Lunatone, so I did not plan to let it out inside Utopia, and because of that, I felt that it was better to put it in stasis until we needed it. Lunatone would not have to wait 2-3 days stuck inside the PokeBall, or rather it did not have to actually experience the 2-3 days, and I could forget about it until I required its services.

If it did a good enough job as a guide I might even let it go through Utopia's treatment before I set it free. The increased potential would get rid of the ceiling it had reached, and if it was lucky enough, it might unlock something that would make me consider keeping it. If not, Lunatone would at least not be stuck at the (low) gold stage which was already a grand gift in itself. I stopped thinking about Lunatone after that and put away its PokeBall as well as the Minior shell splinter.

After that, I continued to take another look around the crater before moving on to the next/second set of steps since it was pretty much in the center of this platform/(height) level. I was not planning to go down the steps since my goal was the third set of steps leading to the upper area because I wanted to check out that the upper part first before heading down.

Since I kept looking around as we walked it took us roughly 20 minutes to cover the distance we could have crossed in less than 3 minutes if we had walked there without any delays and circles. Right across the stairs, we could see the part of the stream generated by the second/biggest waterfall, and even a part of the waterfall as well. Nonetheless, we were ignoring the stream and waterfalls for now, so I did not do more than stare into the stream for a moment when we passed by its side as we continued our exploration toward the third set of steps.

We made it there pretty quickly and after walking around the area, we began walking up the steps. This platform was on the same (height) level as the entrance one, but it was quite a bit smaller, even after adding the little area that had to be accessed by walking past the narrow path, their total size probably matched a little bit more than half the entrance platforms size. Nonetheless, the view between the two places could not be compared at all since the second half of the platform was right beside the waterfall giving one a really close view of it.

It felt as if one could reach into the waterfall by just stretching out one's arm, though that was not the case since there were still close to three meters between the edge of the platform and the rim of the waterfall. One could possibly jump over, though doing so would be dumb since the waterfall would drag one down and bombard one with a lot of water.

Still, it made for an incredible backdrop, so I took a few photos so that I could share them in the group chat later. There were some with just me (and Mothra, who was lounging on my head), and some with Nyx, Thor, as well as Hades/Gengar. After taking the photos, we went back to the set of steps leading to the next area of the platform, which was on the same level as the middle area of the platform on the entrance side.

Due to its relatively small size, we spent not even 10 minutes walking through the whole place despite eyeing everything with a critical look to see if we could spot anything interesting. Honestly, the only thing that stood out to me was that it had a set of steps leading to the next level, which was something that did not exist in the games I played but was present in reality. In the games, one had to go up the waterfall to reach the next area of the platform, but here steps had been carved into the wall, so one could just go up the regular way.

Anyway, this area was on the same (height) level as the upper area of the platform on the entrance side as well as the Marill chamber. Size-wise it was pretty big, even if it was split into two connected parts that were attached by a narrow part similar to the previous area beside the waterfall. There were a few things that stood out about this part of the platform.

The first one was that each of the connected areas bordered a rather large portion of the stream, and at the left corner of the lower part one could even look right at the water crashing down the edge of the platform, resulting in the waterfall. The second one was the opening/tunnel located at the wall of the second part of the area, which led to the next area/room of the Meteor Falls cave system.

Similar to the second area, one could practically stand beside the third/highest waterfall of the chamber/room, the one that was the result of the water channel in the wall and had never been fully explored. This time one could actually reach out to touch the waterfall, though the pressure of the falling water was pretty strong, so doing so would likely cause the average person a bit of pain.

Not that I thought that that would stop some people since there were quite a few people out there who were willing to endure quite a bit just for the sake of some good photos. Given my constitution, I barely felt a thing, so I naturally took some photos with me reaching into the waterfall.

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